This week's Dredd epitomises everything I find wrong with Carroll's take on the story. Everything needs to tie back to something else rather than just being something new. It would be perfectly fine as a throwaway reference in an episode which the reader can either take at face value or consider as the writer's joke. Hinging a whole two part story on it forces you to treat it as An Important Revelation. Which sucks for people who either aren't versed in forty years of history or who think existing crossovers are fine for a laugh but the links really don't need to be pursued or nailed down.

Fortunately, Lawless was there to take the bad taste away. Great episode with more great crowd scenes from Marvellous Mr Winslade.

This week's Dredd epitomises everything I find wrong with Carroll's take on the story....

..Hinging a whole two part story on it forces you to treat it as An Important Revelation.

Now I do generally like Carroll's Dredd, but I agree with you on the "hinging the whole two part story on it". There was nothing in this story or indeed previous Carroll Dredd's to give any clue about it - it was just plucked from the ether at random as far as I am concerned.

I am going to chose to follow Bolt's advice and treat it as as just a one off for now and not read anymore into it (until such time as Michael Carroll follows it up I guess).

It would be perfectly fine as a throwaway reference ... (but) sucks for people who think existing crossovers are fine for a laugh but the links really don't need to be pursued or nailed down.

I'm not a fan of Avalanches-style story construction either, but the reaction here and the other 2000ad shaped recesses of the internet has been 100% awe and appreciation. Comic readers love them some continuity.

A new reader who doesn't know who Kreelman is wouldn't even know that this was a nod to another story, so they wouldn't be put off by it. They literally wouldn't know that they had missed anything. They would think that the final panel was introducing a new character (which as far as Dredd is concerned is exactly what did happen). So I think Cosh's criticism is misplaced here.

We still don't know if the war of 2150 is still going to happen, or if the events of Judgement Day changed the course of history.

On the understanding that it's all just a bit of fun, fiction doesn't have to obey the precepts of physics, and that none of us are Niels Bohr ...

I think if Judgement Day had altered Dredd's timeline in a way that meant Johnny Alpha no longer needed a special prescription from Vision Express, we'd already know about it. In their most recent encounter[1], Alpha clearly remembers and is on friendly terms with Dredd.

If Judgement Day had altered the timeline in a way that meant the war of 2150 never happened, John Kreelman would no longer be a mutant nor (presumably) a bounty hunter [2]. He and Dredd would never have met on Judgement Day.

If Tharg was planning to split the Dredd/Alpha timeline, he'd need to do so sometime in the next decade. After such a split, the Stronty Dog timeline would still feature Dredd in its history, but our Dredd's future would no longer feature the war of 2150 or a mutant called Johnny Alpha.

[1] By Private Contract, Wagner & Ezquerra (prog 2000)

[2] It would take a massive coincidence for the John Kreelman of that alternate, nuke-free post-2015 timeline to also have Rogue Trooper eyes, be friends with a guy called McNulty (who's attached lumps to his head and hacked off his own arm), and team up with the two Stix from current Strontium Dog continuity. This alternate Alpha, from a non-nuked post-2050, would also have needed to travel back in time and meet Dredd before, since he already knows Dredd in By Private Contract. He would need to have done so in some other story we've never seen.

Nobody is saying that the events of Judgement Day changed Alpha's past, only that it might have changed Dredd's future and sent it off into a parallel timeline. That needn't prevent Dredd and Alpha from meeting again in stories like By Private Contract. (Well maybe it should, but comics.)

Nobody is saying that the events of Judgement Day changed Alpha's past, only that it might have changed Dredd's future and sent it off into a parallel timeline. That needn't prevent Dredd and Alpha from meeting again in stories like By Private Contract. (Well maybe it should, but comics.)

Yeah. I banged on about this at some length in a post I can't be arsed to google up, but, specifically supported by the way that time travel/paradoxes seem to work in the Dredd universe, it's entirely possible for Dredd's world to exist as part of Alpha's past, without Alpha's world having to exist as Dredd's definitive future. The timelines can diverge at any point after any of their currently documented meetings without implications for either timeline. In fact, Dredd could visit Alpha's future, but assuming a divergent timeline, he would need both time travel and a D-Jump to do it.

Al Ewing has already introduced the idea that Justice Dept has a dossier on what little they know about Alpha's future. It's possible that there is a plan being hatched (in-fictional-universe) somewhere to ensure that the timelines diverge, since ending up in Alpha's future requires the complete end of the Judges and, by implication, the Mega-Cities.

Nobody is saying that the events of Judgement Day changed Alpha's past, only that it might have changed Dredd's future

Our Alpha's past is Our Dredd's future, Richey Baby.

Whatever happens to change Our Dredd's future is the cut-off point beyond which Our Alpha can no longer visit Our Dredd. Our Alpha could still go back and visit His Dredd (in a past where 2150 still happens), but he could no longer visit Our Dredd (to whom 2150 will pass without incident).

If something in Our Dredd and Our Alpha's shared past changed during Judgement Day (that means the war of 2150 will no longer happen), that's the point beyond which Our Alpha can no longer visit (not 2150 itself).

* According to The Exterminator (926), the timeline can absorb small changes like the timing of death for the childless passengers of the Pan Astra, but Our Dredd can no longer travel back in time and visit the survivors of the Pan Astra in the version of the past where they lived to spread the virus - just as Our Dredd can't go back and visit the Owen Krysler who went on to become The Mutant at a point beyond when Our Dredd travelled back in time (from 2120) and killed Krysler. Those versions of Our Dredd's past are no longer accessible to Our Dredd, just as none of Our Dredd's past after the timelines diverge would be accessible to Our Alpha. Our Alpha can only visit Our Dredd at a point before the timelines diverge.